Android TV Apps Development (eBook)

Paul Trebilcox-Ruiz is a software engineer at Sphero (they make awesome robots that you can control from your phone) in Boulder, Colorado and a Computer Science graduate from California State University, Fresno. His main interests are in the Android platform, Android TV and wearable computing.  He also actively participates in hackathons in the Denver/Boulder area; writes an Android technical blog and presents to Meetups in the area.

Introduction Discuss what Android TV is Discuss what needs to be considered before making the app (is it a game, or a media app? Does it make sense for the TV? DRM, supported formats, hardware restrictions. Why apps that are already created for tablets/phones need a design revamp) Creating a Hello World application in Android Studio Designing for TV Overscan, grids, 10' view, anti-patterns Colors and fontsUsing voice and recommendations Allowing users to be relatively passive Creating a Media Application Manifest and gradle setup Introduce the Leanback library that will be used for the majority of the media app.  RecyclerView grid of items, side navigation, preferences, cards Search Detail Fragment, recommendationsVideo activity - this will probably be a shorter subheader since it's more about how the user wants to set it up, or if I need to add more content I can go into a little detail on the ExoPlayer, which is an open source video player from Google Game Considerations General design consideration, setting up the manifest to support games How to work with the game controller - handling disconnects, new players, button and joystick interactions How to communicate between secondary Android devices (phone, tablet) and the Android TV for a second screen experience. Going to look into the Nearby Messages API that was released yesterday to see if that's more viable, otherwise I know the Nearby Connections API works well. Maybe a section on additional utilities in Play Game Services Distributing Android TV Applications Checklist of requirements to get approved for distribution on the Play Store, and details on what those requirements are.